


Your Fault

by IronWoman359



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universes, Fourth Wall Breaking, The multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronWoman359/pseuds/IronWoman359
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So many timelines, so many AUs.<br/>So many nightmares.<br/>Isn't it time you had your turn?<br/>After all, this is your fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Fault

You glance at the time, and are startled to see how late it's gotten. You have to get up early in the morning, but it seems that hasn't stopped you from losing yourself in the rabbit hole of Undertale tags. Lately, you haven't been able to get enough of the game. The characters, the story, the fanart...  
God, the fanart.  
The fanart is soooo good; it really is the reason you keep going back.  
So many artists, so many pictures and comics and ships and AUs, the multiverse that the fandom has created is massive.  
You sigh, and close your laptop.  
"Enough is enough for one night," you think as you head to bed. As you drift off, images of Undyne, Papyrus, Toriel, and Frisk swirl around in you mind, lulling you to sleep.  
____________________________________________________________________

Dark.

Darker yet darker.

The darkness keeps growing.

The shadows cutting deeper.  
____________________________________________________________________

Darkness surrounds you, thick and suffocating.  
You close your eyes, then open them again. You can't see any difference.  
You put your arm up in front of your face, but you can't see your hand in front of you.  
You call out into the inky blackness. Your voice sounds thin and faraway to your ears straining for any hint of sound.  
There is no echo.  
There is no answer.  
There is just emptiness.

Time passes.  
Was it hours? Minutes? Days, years, seconds?  
You don't know. What you do know is that now, at last, something is different.  
A prick of light has appeared, far off into the distance. It starts to grow; a tiny point of white that slowly begins to take shape.  
As it grows, you suddenly realize you recognize it. That nonchalant pose, that blue hoodie, that face. It's all so familiar to you.  
"Sans?" You wonder aloud, shocked.  
The skeleton is staring at the ground; his shoulders slumped, his hands in his pockets. He looks up when you say his name, and evidently sees you in the darkness.  
"huh. it actually worked." He looks you up and down, and you can't help but feel a little uncomfortable under his gaze.  
"so. you said my name. i guess that means you know who i am," Sans says matter of factly.  
You stare, unable to believe what is happening. You shake your head.  
"I really need to stop reading fanfiction before bed," you mutter to yourself.  
Sans lets out a hollow, angry sounding laugh.  
"you think this is a dream, human? trust me, it's not."  
"But...it has to be," you protest. "You're not..." you trail off, not finishing your thought aloud.  
Sans's stare never wavers, and your discomfort increases. You're about to ask a question, but Sans speaks again before you figure out how to word it.  
"believe me human, i wish that this was only a dream. i wish that they were all only dreams. but they're not, are they?"  
Your eyes widen.  
"Wha-"  
"i mean, i used to think they were just nightmares." His voice shakes slightly as he speaks. "being toyed with by a psychotic flower. watching my brother die, over and over. facing the human in the judgment hall, knowing that if i beat them, they'd just try again until they killed me."  
Sans looks down for a moment, regaining his composure.  
"but i know what they really are." He looks right at you, and says "they're the old timelines. the resets."  
You don't know what to say. You just stare back at Sans, dumbfounded.  
"thankfully," he continues, "the resets have stopped for me. we got our happy ending, and frisk...frisk told me everything. i got some help, and the nightmares eased up for awhile."  
You frown.  
"So...why am I here?" You ask tentatively. "If everything is good for you..."  
"who said everything was good?" Sans asks, his eye sockets growing dark.  
Seeing him like that always creeps you out in pictures, and it is infinitely more disturbing in person.  
"But...but you said your nightmares stopped-" you start to say, but Sans cuts you off.  
"i said they eased up. and they've come back recently." The skeleton takes a deep breath. "and they're different now."  
"What...what do you mean?" You ask.  
"i mean, the dreams have changed. sure, i still sometimes see the usual. the resets. pap dying. being the only one left. those i've learned to handle. but these new dreams..." Sans heaves a sigh, and you suddenly realize that he's exhausted.  
"Sans?" You say, not sure how to make him feel better, or even if you can. You're still not totally sure that this isn't a dream.  
"i've been seeing things that don't make sense. me. my bro. frisk. everyone. except we aren't us. every time, something is wrong. something is different."  
As he talks, images suddenly flash around you in the darkness. With a gasp, you realize you've seen them before. They're all images of Sans.  
Sans in a blue scarf and battle body, grinning from ear to ear.  
Sans in a black hoodie, red eyes glowing angrily.  
Sans in a flowing black cloak, carrying a scythe.  
Sans in Papyrus's scarf with a red slash across his chest and a glitch covering his eye.  
Sans in a lab coat.  
Sans as a giant, winged creature, the power of seven human souls radiating through him.  
Sans wrapped in vines.  
Sans with cracks in his skull beneath his eyes, wearing a black leather jacket.  
Sans as a mobster.  
Sans with black bones and blue magic strings pouring from his red and yellow eyes, glitches surrounding him.  
You stare, as Sans after Sans after Sans flashes before your eyes.  
"The AUs," you whisper, disbelief creeping into your voice.  
They're all there.  
Underswap, Aftertale, Underfell, Outertale, Reapertale, Mobtale, every AU you've ever seen, and dozens more you haven't.  
"i see you know them," Sans says dryly. The spectacle leaves you speechless, and all you can do is nod.  
"the multiverse. hundreds of realities, some somewhat similar, some vastly different. but all of them us." He gestures to the various Sanses flashing by. "each of them is me. that's what the nightmares are now. i've been split across countless worlds, and i can feel it. every night, i can feel all of them at once, and i think it's the same for some of them. it's driven some mad. but there's nothing they can do about it, is there?"  
Sans looks right at you, and you stare back, dumbfounded. All you can do is shake your head no. "heh. i thought so," he says, looking down. "because..." His head snaps up, and his eye is glowing a bright, angry blue.  
"this is your fault, isn't it?"  
You instinctively take a step back, but there's nowhere to go.  
"What do you mean?" You ask, but you already know the answer.  
"we didn't ask to be created. this did not happen naturally. it's the same as it was with the resets. a force outside our universe is controlling it. creating more and more of us, and it hasn't slowed down."  
"Sans? Why are you telling me this?" You interrupt him. He seems surprised by your interruption, but it seems to snap him out of his anger.  
"your universe created ours," he said simply.  
"Yes?"  
"so yours can fix ours."  
Your jaw drops.  
"Fix it? What am I supposed to do about it? Your multiverse grows every time a person has a thought about it, and there are thousands of us thinking about you."  
"i don't know how to fix it," Sans says shrugging. "we're a product of your minds. come up with something."  
The darkness begins to swirl around him, covering him up as he grows smaller and smaller.  
"No! Wait!" You call, but it's too late.  
He's gone.  
_______________________________________________________________

You sit bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily. You check the time: 4:30am.  
"What just happened?" You ask yourself. "Was I dreaming?"  
You get out of bed and go to your desk, opening your laptop. You open your steam account and stare at a file for a moment. It had probably been a dream. There's no way it could have been anything else. Besides, even if it had been real, there was no way to stop the fandom from creating things. It was too massive at this point. There was no way to reach them.  
Or was there?  
You close your steam account and pull up a word processor. You stare at the blank page for a moment, then begin to type.  
Your Fault.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this idea in comic form, of Sans having nightmares of other AU versions of himself. But I'm no good at drawing them, so I wrote it instead.  
> Also, a neat experiment for me using second-person narration and present tense.


End file.
